Tuesday Night: Today was hot, clear and sunny, 30C. I had to pick the Victorian Street up, which meant two trips backwards and forwards to Pedreguer, about 35 minutes away whichever way you choose to go.

I took the opportunity to shoot a short video, so here it is…….

We are planning another exhibition in ten days, this time here, so I will be able to get a steadier video with the tripod….. but then I do like the motion in this one, it brings it to life……

The giant Cactus in the garden has reached 20′ + (6M) and has been flowering……

The lower flowers have withered and higher up the blooms are attracting the bees…..

Soon it’s going to be a 20ft tall dead weed 

Monday Night: Today was mostly clear and sunny, it was about 28C with a southerly breeze, and was cooler earlier. The wind was a bit of a nuisence today because they have made a new road around the back of the village past our drive and today they were tar sealing it, so it stank!

There was a period when we both had to go inside, but the wind veered a little later and we were able to return to working in the courtyard.  I have been working on the base for the Spanish village scene as well as pining all the joints on all the units that I glued together yesterday and that took a while. Most of the assembley work has been done inside though as I need a hard flat surface to work on.

Today I made the base unit and the steps……. The banisters on the roof of unit 2 are just there to “sugest” the balastrauds that will be…….

Sunday Night: Not too hot again today, mostly sunny, 27C……. yesterday was mostly cloudy and cool and Friday was cloudy and very cool for July at just 21C, we even had some rain. Earlier in the week it had been 35C.

I sang last Saturday night at a restaurant called Karma near Javea, it was one of my best ever performances. On Sunday Chrissie and I went to Maria’s for lunch, it was sunny and about 30C, but it was quiet for a weekend.

On Monday we had our impromtu dolls house club meeting, I was pleased to see there were people visiting the exhibition whilst we were there. After that we all went to Monro’s for a late lunch. The rest of the week I have been recovering from Saturday and Monro’s.

Wednesday was sunny and 28C, I spent the day making the pillars for the Edwardian shop front…….

Chrissie has been making the second side of the embroidery garden and has made this……..

I spent Thursday designing the Spanish street/precinct project, then I went Thursday evening to get the wood, after spending hours working out the cutting list and the wood place was closed, but we went shopping Friday so I got the it then.

I marked it our Saturday and began by cutting a couple of the windows, the bulk of it was done today…….

We have been getting loads of salad out of the courtyard…….. including cucumbers, varieties of tomato, peppers, courgettes, peas, beans, garlic, lettuce and many herbs…..

Wednesday Night: Sunny and mostly clear, we reached 29C, but it was cooler for most of the day, yesterday was unbelievably muggy and 30C and Monday was mostly cloudy and cool at 26C, lovley! Sunday was very hot, we went in the pool but it wasn’t pleasant as it often isn’t this time of year, just a nicecity to stay sain…..

I have been making 1/12th scale Spanish terracotta roof tiles for our now not so secrect project of a Costa Blanca street scene. We thought that the Spanish style would be more of a potential seller here in Spain rather than UK terraced streets…..



So if you are going to make a Spanish type scene or some houses, you have to have Spanish style roof tiles. You cannot buy these, so there is no other option than to make them. The concave terracotta clay tiles are put on the roof one row up and one row down, yet you barely see the “down” row benieth the others, but unless it’s there the whole roof doesn’t sit correctly. These tiles are a 100% replicas of the real tile.

To make a section just 100mm x 80mm takes 36 tiles and each of these tile takes an average of 2 minutes each to make….. so basically it’s an hours work. I made 300+ on Monday, I still need a load more tyet, but they are totally 100% scale, even in the way they are made.  I have to say they look amazing, I just need to make so many more…….. There are 119 tiles in the first part of the roof in the picture above, these are simply sitting in place on each other as they would on a real roof here…… On the model roof they will be fitted to best suit and then glued as well as painted to appear aged….. (or maybe not) as the case may be!

Saturday Night. It started out clear and sunny today, then it clouded over and the temperture dropped from 29C to about 26C, which was nice actually….. We went to town to the post and the supermarket, I also went to the aqua supplies centre for some pool chemicals, so that alone probably wiped me out today.

Yesterday it was about 30C, you just can’t do anything when it gets like that! I did spend some time cleaning bucket fulls of leaves from the pool after some very hot strong winds earlier in the week…….

The Exhibition had a fabulous write up in the Costa Blanca News, Samantha the journalsit had spent quiete a lot of time with us and we had talked about our plans, so it was little surprise really that she did write quite a lot about us and our venture and really made it clear that we did the street…. Except she said we ran the club and got our venture mixed up with the club activities. The members don’t seem to mind, saying we deserve it, but she did give away our “secret” new project to the entire region! You can’t say bloody anything to a journalsit can you!

Thursday Night: Hot and sunny, I have been working on the new project with some success….

There have been some more “finishing touches” added to the Edwardian Shop……

Chrissie has finished her embroidered garden and it has been added to the original house…… It looks great… The cats have been banned from the lower house though…..

Wednesday Night: We got to 34.5C in the courtyard today, it was even warmer outside….. We did have a swim this afternoon, thank God for the pool, albeit bloody cold today! It was 28C and when you got out, even though it was 34C at least it was icey cold !!!!! 

It was almost too hot to do anything! I managed to make some temporary curtains for the Edwardian shop and fit these and some window dressing…..but that was about it. Today was a day for research and thinking, I tried out a new idea with fantastic results, you will have to wait and see what this is,  undoubtably today will produce results …. soon

We also had a “mini drama” in the afternoon when Amber bought a medium sized Viper into the gold room. In an attempt to rescue it, the thing escaped and disapeared somewhere in the Aldadins Cave of crafting goodies……. We took the room apart drawer by drawer, box by box, being constantly aware this thing can reach up and bite with lightning speed and agility. We eventually found it hiding on a shelf in a corner, but it still proved impossible to catch. I did manage to get it into a large plastic box once, but it pushed it’s way out of the lid, striking towards me as it did so. A poisioness snake loose in the house wasn’t an option and when we were unable to catch it, in the end I clobbered it instead.

The cat would have eaten it soon enough anyway, but you should have seen the chaos that was left afterwards!

Tuesday Night: Hot today , we reached 32C, it’s still 29C at nearly midnight. We had to go to Pedreguer to meet the Costa Blanca News journalist lady…….. Anyway it was a nice trip out and we got to do a couple of “tweaks” to the display…….

The Edwardiain Shop is going to be called Jackson, we are playing with the sign to see what works……

Monday Night: Today was warm and clear, we reached 29C, it was sunny all day. I went to town on the scooter to go and get the post, but the Moors and Chrisitans feista was in full swing and when I did eventually find somewhere to park, the post office was closed.
 
This afternoon I continued to work on the Edwardian shop frontage, I debated with myself whether or not to attempt the idea I had for the windows, but in the end I did, it is the colour scheme that I painted my windows at Darroch Street, my first house in Christchurch NZ.



The Edwardian Shop is seen here as it was a “close of play” tonight. The above picture is in natural light and shows the frontage in it’s true colours…..

This picture was taken later by flash with the whole building, but the “true” colours and even some of the realism are lost here…..

Sunday Night: Today was warm and mostly cloudy, but with long sunny spells. It got quite dark mid afternoon and there were constant anoying little showers that were just a few big drops that lasted a few minutes, it didn’t even get thisgs wet, bu it was enough to disrupt my painting as a raindrop in the middle of what you just finished is devestating.

I painted the bricks first, that took a while as there were the little sections and the chimneys and roof, then I painted the frontage, still a bit to do but it looks good. I did also paint the windows grey, then I painted them back to white again, didn’t work grey. Have to have a rethink on those. I’m going to make awnings tomorrow.